Four Leading Chinese Environmental Activists

In a recent interview Ralph Litzinger, a Duke Univeristy anthropologist who writes about important Chinese issues, offered his list of notable environmental activists in China. His list includes Ma Jun, Li Bo, Liu Jianqiang and Feng Yongfeng.

Ma Jun and his Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs in Beijing have been doing extraordinary pollution mapping work in China, and have created a network of environmental activists around what they call the “Green Choice Alliance.” They were instrumental in the first reports to expose the links between Apple and its suppliers’ environmental and health record in factories across China.

Li Bo recently stepped down as director of Friends of Nature. He remains deeply involved in a range of environmental justice struggles in China, from toxic waste to energy politics and dam building in west China.

Liu Jianqiang is a journalist turned activists. He recently gave talks in the United States to different audiences in New York and Washington D.C., so his voice and perspective is now getting the attention it deserves, and he has a very important essay, “Defending Tiger Leaping Gorge.”

Feng Yongfeng, a journalist and founder of the organization Green Beagle, is one of the most tireless environmental activists working in China today. His work too rarely gets read or acknowledged in the western press.